As used herein, the terms “user equipment” and “UE” might in some cases refer to mobile devices such as mobile telephones, personal digital assistants, handheld or laptop computers, and similar devices that have telecommunications capabilities. Such a UE might consist of a device and its associated removable memory module, such as but not limited to a Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) that includes a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) application, a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) application, or a Removable User Identity Module (R-UIM) application. Alternatively, such a UE might consist of the device itself without such a module. In other cases, the term “UE” might refer to devices that have similar capabilities but that are not transportable, such as desktop computers, set-top boxes, or network appliances. The term “UE” can also refer to any hardware or software component that can terminate a communication session for a user. Also, the terms “user equipment,” “UE,” “user agent,” “UA,” “user device” and “user node” might be used synonymously herein.
As telecommunications technology has evolved, more advanced network access equipment has been introduced that can provide services that were not possible previously. This network access equipment might include systems and devices that are improvements of the equivalent equipment in a traditional wireless telecommunications system. Such advanced or next generation equipment may be included in evolving wireless communications standards, such as long-term evolution (LTE). For example, an LTE system might include an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) node B (eNB), a wireless access point, or a similar component rather than a traditional base station. As used herein, the term “access node” will refer to any component of the wireless network, such as a traditional base station, a wireless access point, or an LTE eNB, that creates a geographical area of reception and transmission coverage allowing a UA or a relay node to access other components in a telecommunications system. An access node may comprise a plurality of hardware and software.
A traditional telecommunications network typically includes a plurality of central components that act as controllers and coordinators for control plane and user plane traffic to and from the clients in the network. A peer-to-peer (P2P) network is a distributed communication system, wherein the nodes act as peers, configured to perform both client and server functions. As used herein, the terms “peer”, “node”, and “peer node” might be used synonymously. P2P network architectures may be self-organizing, with peers joining and leaving at any time. P2P networks therefore have the ability to link heterogeneous network environments, such as the internet, ad-hoc networks, and home networks, and may realize highly scalable, extensible, and efficiently distributed applications. As there are no centralized network control entities, P2P networks handle functions such as call switching and data routing in a distributed manner, for instance, via defining an overlay network structure and implementing an overlay routing protocol.
P2P networks may be managed or unmanaged. An unmanaged P2P network is fully decentralized, with all peers configured to function as both clients and servers to the other nodes on the network. On the other hand, a managed P2P network may comprise at least one peer acting temporarily as a server, which is managed by the network operators or P2P service providers.
Due to the dynamic structure of P2P networks, each peer is configured to maintain a connection table and to track information on other peers. The connection table may comprise information such as, for instance, node identifier and Internet Protocol (IP) address. If the information on any node in the connection table changes, the other peers may update their respective connection tables.